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Vegas shooting suspect arrested in Los Angeles

Published on NewsOK
Modified: February 28, 2013 at 9:25 pm •
Published: February 28, 2013

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LAS VEGAS (AP) — A self-described pimp was arrested Thursday in Los Angeles, ending a weeklong manhunt that began after a shooting and spectacular, fiery crash that killed three people on the Las Vegas Strip, police said.

This photo provided by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department shows Ammar Harris in a booking photo from a 2012 arrest in Las Vegas. Las Vegas police Capt. Chris Jones says Ammar Harris was arrested Thursday, Feb. 28, 2013 by a team of police and federal agents in North Hollywood, Calif. The 26-year-old is a self-described pimp who was the subject of a multi-state manhunt following the Feb. 21 gunfire and chain-reaction crash that killed three and injured at least five. (AP Photo/Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department)

Ammar Harris, 26, surrendered to a fugitive apprehension team of police and FBI agents who found him a little after noon inside a Studio City apartment where a woman answered the door, authorities said.

"This arrest is much more (than) taking Ammar Harris into custody," Clark County Sheriff Douglas Gillespie said in Las Vegas. "I hope anyone out there watching understands clearly if you live in this city, if you work in this city, or you visit this city and act like this person, we will find you, we will prosecute you, and we will send you to prison."

Harris, whose Internet posts show him with fists full of money boasting of a high-rolling lifestyle with prostitutes, was booked into a Los Angeles jail pending an extradition hearing Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court.

His arrest ended an intense multi-state search that began after the Feb. 21 attack at a neon-lit intersection home to posh casino resorts such as Bellagio, Bally's, Flamingo and Caesars Palace.

Court documents allege Harris was driving his black Range Rover SUV when he fired into a Maserati sports car, killing self-promoted rapper Kenneth Wayne Cherry Jr. The two men had argued minutes earlier in the valet area of a Las Vegas Strip resort, authorities said.

The Maserati, with Cherry mortally wounded at the wheel, sped forward and slammed into a taxi that burst into flames. The 62-year-old cabbie, Michael Boldon, and his passenger, Sandra Sutton-Wasmund, 48, of Maple Valley, Wash., were killed.

In all, six cars were involved in the crash, and five other people were injured. None of those injuries was life-threatening, authorities said.

A passenger in the Maserati, identified in court documents as Freddy Walters, was wounded in the arm. Police said he cooperated with investigators after the crash. Attempts to reach him Thursday were not immediately successful.

The crash closed the Strip for about 15 hours while police investigated. Two days later, police located the SUV parked two blocks east of the crash scene at an apartment complex where Harris rented a unit. Harris wasn't there.

Lt. Ray Steiber, who headed the investigation, said Thursday that investigators learned that Harris fled Las Vegas "pretty rapidly" after the shooting and fiery crash. Detectives fielded "hundreds and hundreds" of tips in the following days.

Investigators reviewed casino surveillance images of a disagreement with Cherry at the valet area at the Aria resort, collected bullet casings and listened to audio recordings from nearby taxis of the sound of five gunshots on the Strip, and obtained traffic camera video of the Maserati speeding through the Las Vegas Boulevard intersection at Flamingo Road.